I don’t know about you, but after I finished Diablo 3 I was in no mood to repeat the process on the same content with tougher enemies for progressing my character.

While I wait for Grim Dawn to finish cooking in the Kickstarter pot, this game caught my eye as another possible Diablo replacement. The setting seems slightly more interesting than your standard fantasy setting. Does anyone know of a Sci-Fi based Diablo clone? I don’t but I would like to see some come out.

I have not been gaming much lately. Been busy with work and closing the sale on my Mom’s house. All I read on the tweeter and blogs is about the big GW2 party coming but I still stand by my decision.

Plus I’m going to be out of town for most of the event. If you work in IT you probably know what’s going on next week. I normally let any subsciptions to MMOs expire if I know I will miss 25% of them from being out of town.

I just read on the SWTOR forums something about Collector’s Edition purchasers having to have an active subscription on the day free to play launches to be eligible for those bonus 1000 Cartel Coins. I guess I should have expected it, but I thought they were trying to make up for never putting anything decent on that darn Collector’s Edition vendor that made me buy the steaming pile in the first place. I guess not. I read another post about how someone uses the box to remind themselves about foolish purchases. That sounds about right to me.

I can’t wait for the crop of games I’ve supported on Kickstarter to mature and come out. Maybe some single player goodness will get me in a better mood. I have a post on the back burner simmering about that for another time. Most all of them are a ways off though. I should do a run through of my Fallout 3 Game of the Year edition and Fallout New Vegas. Now that I upgraded my video card, I think they might be a good diversion.

Let me add my little contribution. I was already sad about blowing $150 on the collector’s edition. This is like Bioware/EA rubbing salt into the wound. I don’t care about the 1000 coins that the collector’s edition suckers get nor do I care about signing up to pay monthly so I can bank more of them UNTIL THEY POST EXACTLY WHAT THESE COINS WILL LET US BUY AND EXACTLY HOW MANY COINS IT WILL COST US.

Never again. If they won’t tell us what we get and how much its going to cost, the coins are worthless to us.

I had stopped playing Diablo 3 and I really did not consciously know why. Now that I have beaten Diablo 3, I think I know why.

It happens to me sometimes in MMOs, I finally get to max level and then lose interest in the character because the leveling process and content to support it is over. I knew that once I beat Diablo 3, I would be in that same predicament. Not to mention that further character development demands you play the same content over again with tougher enemies. If I am loath to do it for an alt, why would I do it with the exact same character? Been there, done that.

So in the wee hours of this past Sunday morning, I broke the seal on the Diablo 3 storyline and experienced it all. I will say that it has you feeling very grand and epic in stature. The snowy keep in Act 3 and setting of the final act really had the feel of being areas under siege. The infernal area in Act 3 had some scenery that kept me wondering though. If one of those gigantic demons were to pluck my little monk off the walkway, the story would have been over. Why didn’t the boss from Act 3 have them do just that? Also I will say that the final battle just seemed tedious rather than challenging considering the previous boss battles.

I do have one regret. Why won’t Blizzard let you view the story cut scenes that are rendered with the game engine? Not the CGI stuff and not the hand drawn animation cell looking stuff, but the stuff that is shown to you with the in-game rendering engine. Without spoiling anything, there is a plot reveal at the end of Act three and my internet went out and when I got back in, all I had was the option to proceed to Act 4. I could not replay what happened. Now I got the gist of it, but it made me sad that I could not somehow replay it.

Let me start by getting this off my chest. I am still so mad that I bought the $150 collector’s edition of SWTOR. I have never purchased a boxed collector’s edition of a game before that. I have only purchased a digital collector’s edition of a game once that I can remember (Rift) because I thought it was a good value.

There was only one reason that I bought the collector’s edition of SWTOR and that is the special in game vendor that only CE purchasers have access to. If they had just allowed that bonus to be in the digital collectors edition (since, I don’t know, the reward is DIGITAL!!!) I could have saved a lot of money. But of course they knew that and they knew that the vagueness of what was purchasable on that vendor would have fans constantly second guessing themselves whether or not they should pony up and take a chance.

The items currently available on this vendor can be summed up a “lame” to put it mildly. I would log in and verify it but I am currently no longer subscribed. I am also mad that I forgot to mention to them how crappy this vendor was when I filled out the survey upon cancelling my account.

I mean, think about it – some games only charge like $49 more to have a lifetime subscription (LotRO and TSW come to mind). Previously, collectors editions had been coming in at the $80-$90 mark but for whatever reason BioWare (or more likely, EA) thought the hype machine was cranked up enough to charge almost double that and I fell for it hook, line, and sinker.

Am I the only one who finds this trend disturbing? Do any of you feel regret about collector’s editions out there or am I alone in my misery?